


You're Gonna Be

by Diddle_Riddle



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Baby Names, Blood and Violence, Coma, Cute, F/F, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Friends as Family, Friendship, Gen, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Past Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, Recovery, Sweet, Team as Family, taking care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26492218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diddle_Riddle/pseuds/Diddle_Riddle
Summary: Pamela Isley doesn't like children. She even less appreciates babies' company. This is an established truth everyone is aware of in Gotham, her friends more than anyone.A major difference lingers however, between random 'children' or 'babies', and... Harleen Quinzel's daughter.
Relationships: Harleen Quinzel & Everyone, Jonathan Crane & Pamela Isley, Jonathan Crane/Edward Nygma, Lucy Quinzel & Everyone, Pamela Isley & Edward Nygma, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel, Stephanie Brown & Edward Nygma, Stephanie Brown & Jonathan Crane, Stephanie Brown & Pamela Isley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	You're Gonna Be

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Reba McEntire's song 'You're Gonna Be'.  
> Enjoy! <3

"Why don't you want to hold her?"

"It's not that I _don't want to._ ", Pamela declined, alongside casting Edward a merciless bat-glare for his intrusive question.

Her dark green eyes landed on the small wriggling frame in Riddler's arms.

A joyful baby with big curious eyes, whom clenched and unclenched her minuscule fists while producing these typical newborn sounds akin to light, almost inaudible for now, birds' peeps.

She wasn't very active, either. All she did was cry, drink milk from her baby bottle, replenish her diapers and chirp faintly.

"Are all babies that boring?", Ivy frowned at the pink individual when Eddie fed her again with another bottle he carefully secured for her not to choke.

"I don't know.", Riddler observed this little creature with fondness. "I never took care of a newborn before. But I don't find her 'boring'.", he discarded the assumption. "More like... amusing. And most of all, _super duper cute._ "

"Cute?"

Pam glared some more at the tiny thing.

It evoked nothing 'cute' to her.

This is the moment Jonathan elected to walk out of the medical bedroom. Ivy immediately stood to her feet.

"She remains weak.", Scarecrow anticipated effortlessly the inquiry on Harley Quinn's health, his analysis was by no means a surprise. "Whereas there's no evolution, her life is not in danger. We can let her a respite before next x-rays."

The two gingers nodded.

They checked regularly Harleen's numerous broken bones to make sure the fractures heal correctly.

Pamela spent the previous night watching over a sound asleep Harley. They set up sort of... security times. They rarely left her alone, and if so, they were in the rooms next to hers, ready to intervene at first complication.

They take care of both Harl and... her daughter.

Jonathan scooped up the baby when Edward gladly handed her over to him.

"How's the most beautiful girl in the planet?", he greeted the eight days old human, whom obviously _didn't respond_ but seemed diverted by the change of person holding her, as if the movement provoked a funny distraction. "I told you.", Jon bragged when he secured the happy newborn between his long bony arms, mindful to maintain her head at a fitting position. "I will be the one who makes her laugh first."

"I'd like to see you try.", Ed replied in the same playful tone. "Spooky Scarecrow making Baby laugh. The vision is just adorable."

Ivy shifted uncomfortably as the pair teased each other over their capacities to entertain this small human. She felt... out of place.

When Harley found out about her pregnancy, she _freaked out,_ unable to initially decipher what to do. She seeked for comfort at Pamela's place... who _freaked out more._ This time Ivy almost snapped and went straight out to kill the Joker. The clown and her fought; they injured badly one another, albeit nothing fatal.

It's _after_ her instinctive 'fight reaction' that Poison Ivy... considered divergent solutions.

And it's Jonathan and Edward, not her, who have been, by far, the most supportive over the following nine months. Ed helped Harley through during her pregnancy, once she decided to keep the baby. Something similar happened with Spoiler last year; Pamela may wasn't actively aware of this part of the teen vigilante's life, she knew Stephanie Brown got pregnant when she was fifteen... and could count on Riddler, Scarecrow and a few others, to assist her from day one to the moment she gave her baby up to adoption the very instant of her birth.

She may didn't invest herself in Spoiler's experience, Pamela wanted to be there for Harleen's. She tried, of course. She _loved_ Harley with every fiber of her being, she owed her to try her best.

Only... 'her best' could never be enough in this field.

How could it be? How could _anyone_ expect her to... care about... get concerned by... a _pregnancy,_ a _birth_ and the future _care,_ then _education_ of a growing baby?! Even when said baby is the daughter of the woman she loves.

_Knock knock knock_ "Pammy!"

 _Knock knock knock_ "Pammy!"

 _Knock knock knock_ "Pammy!"

Ivy opened her parental suite's door with a displeased grunt.

"What did I tell you about this knocking habit?!"

"That you find it charming?", Edward grinned smugly.

Pamela refrained a disparaging remark. It would be irrelevant: when Riddler has something in mind, even regarding puerile topics, he goes through with it. No matter what others say against or about it.

"Stephanie is back from the stores.", Eddie informed the older redhead. "We're planning a nice bonding-evening together. Wanna join?"

Pam shook her head no.

"I need to stay with Harley."

"We _all_ need to. And that's _what_ we do.", he asserted patiently. "In her state however, she won't notice whether you are in the same room as hers or not. What I am convinced of though, is that she wouldn't want you to stop living whilst you wait for her."

Ivy turned around. Without being invited, Eddie followed her inside her spacious room, turned into a greenhouse of some sort given the number of plants that invaded nearly every inch of space.

"Get out."

"No. I am your friend, Pam, I won't let you..."

"No you're not! You are not my 'friend', Ed. You are a _child_ Jon and I took care of for years who, to the general consternation, grew up yet never managed to become an adult."

"Right. So that makes me... more of your son than your friend. Therefore, I am _even more_ in a legitimate stance when I claim I want to help you."

She didn't contest, too tired to argue. Ivy slumped on the bed's mattress.

"I can't do it.", she let out, the lump in her throat making her complaint sound pitiful, unlike what she wished. "I can't replace Harley, I am not capable to play her role until she wakes up."

"That's not what you are expected to do. And _certainly not_ what _we_ try to do.", Edward opposed, gently but firmly. "It never has been. We are here for Harl by taking care of her child. The aim would never be to replace her."

Pamela hardly to ever _cried._ When she was a little girl, desperate and alone in an abusive household, she did so. She cried at night, the most silently possible, not to be noticed by her parents. Noise would cause punishment.

As a depressive teen, sometimes she locked herself in the toilets in high school to cry instead of going to class, when the level of stress and pain was just... too much to endure. When the weight felt too heavy on her shoulders.

She cried for Harley, occasionally. Though these often were... happy tears.

She cried of _sadness_ since Harls' most violent fight against metahumans, merely days after her baby's birth.

Who answers a SOS delivered by a friend in her Suicide Squad gang when she is seven, almost eight months old pregnant?! Ivy, Riddler, Scarecrow and Catwoman came with her for this expedition... which turned far worse than anyone predicted. If they did, they wouldn't have let her go. Far from a simple rescue mission, they ended up caught in a proper war they failed to step aside from in _weeks._ Harley Quinn gave birth in an underequipped bunker that contained nothing more than painkillers, gauze and alcohol in matter of medicine.

In this hellish environment, Harleen rejected the 'giving a name to the child' step.

"Not here.", she had cried, exhausted, her daughter against her. "She wasn't suppose' ta arrive in dat shithole. We'll get out'n _then_ we'll do as if it's her birthdate. She deserves a better place ta be given a name."

The events appeared blurred in Pamela's memory. They escaped, indeed. The rest of the Suicide Squad team barged in at last; the Gothamites ditched them as soon as they could. Only... not in one piece.

They didn't return to Gotham City, rather to a peculiar hideout in the countryside. Lost in the forest, with a gorgeous view on a lake from the posh chalet. The first town was at fourty minutes in car; this serves both as laboratory and secondary residence.

Selina left them to head back to town, she'll ask for news afterwards. Merely two days post their resolution to settle here, Stephanie Brown hurried to the place to ask _where on Earth_ they disappeared over the past weeks.

Thereupon the teen stayed around. She took the role of mediator between their hideout and the nearest city.

Over those days of well-deserved break they used to recover, take care of the newborn and heal their own multiple wounds too, Harley didn't wake up.

"Come in.", Edward invited her at present time, dragging Pamela off her reflexions.

She let him guide her to the living room where Scarecrow and Spoiler talked with the baby, both in casual outfits.

"Heya Pammy!", the blonde teenager acknowledged her cheerfully.

Ivy smiled a bit.

She joined the small circle, sat on the fluffy carpet between Jonathan and Edward.

"What are you doing?"

"Working on our maternal instinct.", Jonathan shot Spoiler a reproving look. "That is to say, accepting _nothing_ of what Miss Brown proposed to 'play' with that poor kid."

Steph chuckled, thereafter she relaunched:

"Wanna work on yours?"

"No."

"Pamela..."

"Leave it be."

They don't understand, do they? That she _can't._ Physically. She is not... made of that material, she doesn't sense what any human would feel upon interacting with their loved one's child.

"Pammy.", Jonathan tried in his calm psychiatrist voice. "It's _normal_ reflexes are not automatic. Like everything, taking care of a child is something that needs to be learned."

"I cannot learn anything of that kind!", she hissed angrily. "How could I? I am not _biologically able_ to bear children. I never have been. Even _nature_ knows I couldn't be a decent caretaker, so let alone a parent! I have no maternal instinct, I could work on it all I want it won't change the fact I... literally _can't stand_ babies or young children. It will never work. Not with any baby."

They kept quiet.

"It's not the same thing.", Stephanie appended with delicacy after a handful of seconds. "She is not just _any_ baby."

Jon took Pamela's hand, the two old friends shared a supportive glance.

From her nest of pillows, Baby let out something like a sweet sigh. The others' gaze on her showed a neat sparkle of _adoration._ Pam forced a slight smile on her red lips.

"We should give her a name.", Stephie said then. "It's been over two weeks now, we solely call her 'baby'. She should wear a genuine name."

"No.", Pamela disallowed. "She is _Harley's_ daughter, it's up to _her_ to name her child!"

"... We know what appellations she prefers.", Edward reminded them.

They often pondered over it together.

The acrobat wanted to see her baby's face before choosing, as well as waiting the birth to know the gender. Then... she would have chosen _five days later,_ when they escaped.

She conserved a main list nonetheless, of feminine and masculine names she appreciated.

Thus Edward recited the six names between which their dear friend would have chosen for a girl:

"Rose, Amber, Brittany, Charlie, Lucy and Ava."

They watched the baby. She had let out a chirp mildly more powerful than her previous warble at _one_ mentioned name.

They eyed each other.

"She is like a... little light.", Stephanie underlined. "This is what is missing out right now, and precisely what Harley must follow to wake up. She needs a _lighting point,_ shining in the dark to show her the way back home. Baby must feel this, she knows she should be named like the 'light'. Luce. Lucy."

They turned toward Pamela.

They are waiting for _me_ to agree or disagree, they deem I should have the last word., she realized.

Of course they do., a snarky voice retorted in her head. You may aren't genetically linked to that child, they all consider you her second parent. As the woman who loves her mother.

They've been careful with the transition. Jonathan helped her, he made sure her posture was adequate, he let go of her when Ivy gave her approval, not before.

Pamela finally held the baby in her arms.

The little thing looked up to her, big sky blue eyes, identical to her mother's, radiant with a joyous curiosity.

Pammy smiled at her.

"... Nice to meet you, Lucy Quinzel."

________

"I love it. Dat name suits her perfectly."

Harley punctuated her statement by a sweet kiss on her girlfriend's lips, who let out a sad:

"Nothing will erase the months you lost."

"I would have liked ta be there with ya.", the younger doctor admitted. "Ta see how it went. But I have blin' faith in ya, Jonny and Eddie. In Eddie's daughter-sister too. I take it Spoiler is part of da family?"

"More than she was before.", Ivy approved. "Now she freshly became Robin, Edward began a _reform program._ Something that should take him barely a few weeks, two or three months at most. For whatever reason, Bruce Wayne paid him the easiest way out of the business for him to catch up with a civilian life."

Her eyes alit again on the baby Harley held cautiously.

"Stephanie watched out for Lucy just as Jonathan and Edward did."

"And ya."

"... And me."

Five months old Lucy chirped happily.

Harley hugged her some more. She met her daughter, at last. She came back to the world of the living. Came back to her friends. Her Harleen came back to _her._

In a relatively unusual gesture, Pam hugged them both; the three smiled, huddled together in a protective, warm embrace.

"It feels like family.", Pamela said softly.

"It 'feels' cuz we _are._ Family."

Lucy Quinzel will grow up raised by her moms, two of the most famous Rogues Gallery members. Surrounded by her godfathers, one being the self-proclaimed 'God of Fear', the other a mastermind who behaves like a kid, would he be up to no good or when becoming, as he ambitioned now, a private investigator. Her godmother, walking between the light and dark in a cat costume. And her favorite aunt / big sister / cousin, the Fourth Robin impersonated those three roles at once. Not to mention the other rogues... and Batfamily, who will play an important role in the child's life.

Their little lighting point. Bright, shining, beautiful.

Sure thing, their future with Lucy is likely going to be... special. In every sense of the term.

But so darn well worth it.


End file.
